Just as Lily was pondering on her decision, Severus asked her about something that she was quite proud of.

” Is this flask rinsed with lemons as the scrub and oxyborate powder as the cleaner? I must say, whatever you used the flask for before cleaning it, I can’t smell it at all and there is no residual sticky layer left either, your washing is quite thorough ” Severus said as he strolled through the master alchemists lab and picked up an empty mixing flask that had no chemicals inside.

Both Lily and her assistants’ eyes brightened up at the compliment.

” You understand alchemy? ” Lily asked hopefully, wondering if the man accompanying Lord Ravan was a budding alchemist in the making.

” I don’t understand Alchemy, I’m more of a blood scientist, but I understand hygiene, back at my laboratory I used oxyborate powder to scrub my equipment as well, however, the addition of the lemon is a good touch, it keeps the equipment pleasant to smell and eliminated the stickiness of certain stored chemicals by reacting with them, ingenious I must say” Severus replied as he seemed to now sniff what the table was cleaned with.

Technically Severus was behaving like a creep, smelling every vial and surface while also licking a few from time to time before spraying it with some alcoholic sanitizer and cleaning the part he touched with his tongue.

If Max was a scientist and some creep behaved like this in his lab, he would have slapped him three times on the spot before kicking his weird ass out of the building, but Lily and her assistant seemed different.

The apprentice boy proudly told Severus everything about their cleaning and hygiene practices while taking utmost pride in being the one to clean all used flasks on a daily basis.

Initially the discussion was pleasant and only Severus complementing them on their ways, but after 20 minutes or so, it changed into an educational lecture as Severus began flexing his Saint Maximus Cleaning muscles teaching the apprentice how to clean multiple bottles at once without wasting time.

He chatted passionately with Lily about what the interference of small amounts of pollutants could do to a brewing potion and the two debated about the impurity in potions which used body parts from creatures.

Max felt like dozing off several times during the course of the conversation, but he soldiered through.

” You know, I’ve seen the insides of a pet squirrel once.

That owner only fed expensive blueberries to the animal for years.

In the end when it died, the owner suspected that it had been poisoned by the malicious neighbour who was jealous of his pet and had sent it for autopsy.

Upon opening the squirrel we found that it’s liver was completely purple in colour, very different from what the liver of other squirrels looked like, but the change in colour was not because of some poison’s effect but rather because of a lifetime of eating blueberries.

This phenomenon had greatly sparked intrigue in me, as I noticed the same differences across many species which had the same constitution but different diet.

This is why I wonder that when we brew alchemical potions with ingredients such as the tail feather of a phoenix, will the results of the same formulation vary if the tail feather was brought from a different bird of the same species?

In such a scenario, unless all ingredients undergo a pre – preparation, can the uniformity of a potion formula truly be maintained? ” Severus enthusiastically discussed as Lily began pondering deeply about the things that Severus had just pointed out.

The two discussed about the purity of biological materials for 6 hours straight as throughout Max stood seated on his chair zoning in and out of sleep before giving up completely on waking up and dozing off peacefully.

After what seemed to be a 3 hours long peaceful sleep, Max was patted on the shoulders by Severus who asked him to wake up as Lily seemed to be packing all her equipment and chemicals into wooden crates.

” It’s done, she’s coming back to Dombivli with us, just needs 2 days to pack everything ” Severus said as Max shot to his feet and thanked the master alchemist for giving his clan the honour of hosting her.

” Oh it’s no biggie, with talented ministers of hygiene like Severus working for you, of course I would love to come to your territory Lord Ravan ” Lily said with underlying enthusiasm in her voice as her assistant nodded his head profusely.

It seemed like the decision to bring Severus along had bore fruit and the clean freak had managed to woo the other weirdos with his cleaning obsession.

As Max and Severus walked out of the workshop they saw the crowd of representatives from number 7 still waiting outside patiently as Max chuckled looking at the waiting line.

It had been several hours since the meeting started and the poor sods had to keep waiting outside for all these hours.

” The selection process is over, thank you all for waiting patiently, but master Lily has chosen the Bloodfall Clan as her patron ” the little assistant announced as he slammed the door shut before the 7th token number clan could enter much to the dismay of the waiting crowd outside.

‘ This Is bullshit man! I’m waiting here out in the sun sweating from head to toe without eating anything for a day and yet the selection is over before my turn even comes? And they selected party is even a nobody! ‘

‘ Wow, the Caesar clan representative is left outside but the Bloodfall clan manages to snag the master alchemist, what interesting times we live in ‘

‘ What took so long in the meeting? Did Ravan cast some brainwashing spell on the master alchemist? ‘

” THIS IS WRONG! LET ME TALK SOME SENSE INTO THE MASTER ALCHEMIST” One of the more rowdy representatives shouted as Max cast a menacing glance at the tier2 man and suppressed him instantly through [ Aura Expression ]

” Agh, it hurts ” the man complained as he was forced to buckle to his knees under Max’s pressure as he began sweating buckets while experiencing nasal discharge.

” Stay within your limits, fool ” Max commented as he strolled out of the area with Severus by his side and a mission successfully accomplished.

———-

/// A/N – Chapter 10/30, a new day ///